Add Idaho to the growing list of states like North Dakota and Alabama amassing enormous legal fees defending unconstitutional anti-abortion restrictions.

As reported by the Associated Press, the latest attorneys’ bill came Thursday when U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled the state owed more than $376,000 to attorneys for Jennie Linn McCormack, the Pocatello woman who had been unsuccessfully prosecuted for a felony because police claimed she had an illegal abortion. McCormack’s lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of the prosecution and several other Idaho abortion restrictions, including the state’s so-called “fetal pain” pre-viability ban. The lawsuit resulted in a federal court overturning some of those restrictions, including the pre-viability ban.

Because some of McCormack’s case is still pending with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the state won’t have to actually pay the nearly $400,000 immediately. That’s in part because the outcome of that appeal could determine the final cost. Should the state ultimately succeed before the Ninth Circuit, the amount it owes McCormack’s attorney could be reduced. Likewise, should McCormack succeed at the Ninth Circuit, the fee could go up with the state ordered to pay McCormack’s appellate costs as well.

Since 2000 and prior to the fees associated with McCormack’s case, the State of Idaho had already spent about $365,000 defending other abortion restrictions, including challenges to a parental consent law, a so-called “partial birth abortion” law, and a law that would have denied Medicaid coverage for medically necessary abortions. In addition to the almost $400,000 to defend those laws, it was also ordered to pay an additional $446,000 in attorneys’ fees to the plaintiffs in those three cases.

But McCormack’s case should raise some ethical questions within Idaho’s attorney general’s office and with the public at large. According to the AP report, the attorney general’s office warned lawmakers that a pre-viability ban was unconstitutional, but lawmakers passed it anyway. Now, it’s the job of the attorney general to defend state law, but attorneys also have a corresponding ethical obligation to not advance frivolous claims or defenses. Rule 3.1 of the Idaho Rules of Professional Responsibility dictates that “[A] lawyer shall not bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith argument for an extension, medication, or reversal of existing law.” The rule is designed to give attorneys enough room to creatively advocate on behalf of their clients while preserving the basic compromise that is supposed to form the foundation of all litigation: attorneys can advocate zealously, but they must do so in good faith.

In McCormack’s case, state attorneys argue they didn’t violate any ethical obligation, because instead of arguing over the merits of the so-called fetal pain law their defense strategy was to challenge McCormack and her attorney on standing, the procedural requirement that allows an individual to bring a claim. But that’s a smoke-and-mirrors argument that maybe meets the low bar for ethical clearance set by Rule 3.1 but arguably violates its spirit. McCormack challenged Idaho’s pre-viability ban and has been successful, for now, in getting the law blocked. And while that challenge was at times wrapped up with McCormack’s other, more visible challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s illegal abortion statute, the court did eventually rule on the constitutionality of the state’s pre-viability ban. That means the substance and merits of the law was before the court, and the attorney’s general office can’t claim their strategy of initially avoiding the merits of the law in favor of a stronger, procedural argument did not function as a defense of that law.

State rules of professional responsibility are aspirational—they are standards the profession hopes to maintain. Absent administrative complaints to the state’s governing board, they don’t, by themselves, create the ability to hold lawyers responsible for their conduct. The vehicle to do that is a legal malpractice lawsuit, and malpractice claims are based on a standard of negligence. Amazingly, violating an ethical rule is not considered per-se negligence, which means it can’t be the basis for a malpractice lawsuit. Stated another way, absent some really big screw-up by lawyers, there’s not much the public can do to police their conduct. They are left to do it themselves. And as we’re seeing in places like Idaho, that’s an expensive proposition. It also highlights why the fight over the so-called “science” behind the latest rounds of pre-viability bans is so critically important. Without it, anti-choice litigators cannot ethically claim they are legitimately advancing any “good faith argument for an extension, medication, or reversal of existing law” when they claim any abortion restriction that bans the procedure pre-viability is constitutional in the face of Roe v. Wade.

An attempt to regulate medication abortion in the state failed when lawmakers ran out of time on the legislative calendar, but a considerable number of Idaho women are still leaving the state in search of safe abortion access.

Abortion rights advocates applauded the recent federal ruling that the Idaho 20-week abortion ban is unconstitutional. Anti-choice state lawmakers, on the other hand, took the announcement as a chance to do some last-minute bill drafting in an attempt to quietly pass a new abortion ban and regulate how medication is provided in medication abortions.

The Associated Press reports that an attempt to pass new abortion restrictions in response to the Ninth Circuit ruling stalled out in the state senate when lawmakers ran out of time on the legislative calendar. The new regulations “would have deleted sections of the existing law but also added new requirements physicians must meet before administering drugs that terminate pregnancies,” according to the AP.

Jennie Linn McCormack’s case highlighted the lengths that women will go to in order to end a pregnancy when access to safe abortion is cut off. It’s a situation many Idaho women have faced and will continue to face, as significant numbers of women seeking abortion services find the nearest provider across state lines.

The state’s department of health has released new numbers showing that many Idaho women seeking abortions are leaving the state to receive them. According to the Idaho Statesman, 40 percent of Idaho women end up going to different states to access abortions. “When women need it, they find it difficult to access,” Kristen Glundberg-Prossor, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, told the Statesman. Over 70 percent of those who leave Idaho for abortion care go to Washington, the paper says, rather than one of the two providers in the state.

Reproductive rights advocates got a big win last week when a federal judge in Idaho struck a series of Idaho abortion restrictions, including the state’s 20-week “fetal pain” abortion ban, which requires first-trimester abortions to be performed by a physician in a staffed office or clinic, making most medical abortions illegal. The judge also struck a restriction requiring second-trimester abortions to be performed in a hospital as well as a statute that criminalizes the act of self-abortion. The sweeping decision takes the Idaho legislature to task for passing restrictions that are so clearly unconstitutional and designed to target and punish women. As good a decision as this is, the case is probably not over. Anti-choice activists will likely appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit, a necessary intermediate step before petitioning for U.S. Supreme Court review and a challenge to Roe v. Wade, which is the ultimate goal of these restrictions.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt announced that the state has filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court to review a unanimous Oklahoma Supreme Court decision striking an Oklahoma law that banned the off-label use of RU-486. The chance of U.S. Supreme Court review of a unanimous state supreme court decision interpreting state law is so remote it raises questions about why Pruitt would waste the resources. One answer might be his 2014 re-election campaign.

There are now 50 lawsuits challenging the birth control benefit in the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that mandating contraception coverage in insurance plans is a violation of religious liberties. Here are 18 for-profit companies fighting to eliminate that benefit.

It looks like we’ll have to update that list to 19, because Colorado mortgage banking company Cherry Creek Mortgage has just filed suit challenging the mandate as well. Cherry Creek Mortgage is owned by former U.S. Senator Bill Armstrong and does business in 27 states. The company has 730 employees and is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom in its lawsuit.

The argument that corporations have religious rights they can exercise is of course shadow play for businesses to evade providing equal benefits to their employees. Imani Gandy breaks down the straw-man argument here, in a discussion of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and his anemic amicus brief filed in the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Hobby Lobby contraception challenge.

Emma Caterine of the Red Umbrella Project has this great piece on the devastating public health impact of police using the possession of condoms as evidence of sex work and how the practice has led to a proliferation of gender-based violence by law enforcement.

We got a reminder during oral arguments in Shelby Co. v. Holder, the voting rights challenge, that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is one strong advocate for civil rights and social justice. Here’s another. Eleven-year-old Cameron Myers Milne wrote the justice a letter asking that the Supreme Court strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to help her lesbian parents. While ethical rules prevent Sotomayor from commenting on the challenge to the law, her response is still awesome.

When Pocatello, Idaho mother Jennie Linn McCormack was charged with “unlawful abortion,” the prosecutor admitted two things–that there had likely been other women quietly procuring their own abortions, regardless of the state law that made it illegal for an abortion to be performed by anyone other than a doctor, and that he was aghast at the idea that McCormack, an unmarried mother of three, was irresponsibly and repeatedly getting pregnant and not “protecting the fetus.”

As a whole, the McCormack case has been a difficult one for pro-choice advocates to rally around. A late abortion, a fetus wrapped and discovered on a porch, all of the details create a profile of a woman for whom it may be difficult to garner a great deal of sympathy.

But that may have been exactly why this case began in the first place. McCormack is by no means the only woman within the last two years to be arrested for the crime of potential “self-abortion.” Police tried to charge New Yorker Yaribely Almonte with self-abortion after her 24-week old fetus was found in a dumpster, claiming she took a tea to induce her own miscarriage. The charges were dropped although, like in McCormack’s case it was left open to allow a chance to prosecute if more evidence was found to support the charge.

Women have rarely been charged with self-abortion in the past, and when it does occur, the charges are often dismissed. Yet in 2011 two very prominent, public cases occurred. With a refusal to completely close cases off, it seems as if prosecutors may in fact be testing the waters to see if people really believe that “there are two victims in an abortion–the mother and the child,” as so-called pro-life advocates claim, or if people are open to the idea of criminalizing the woman as an accessory if abortion does become illegal.

In other words, an attempt to see whether the courts–and the public–are ready yet to consider jailing those who obtain abortions, and not just the doctors who perform them, has failed.

For now.

“This is an important decision that explicitly rejects Idaho’s claim that the state may use its criminal abortion laws to punish pregnant women who end their pregnancies,” said Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, via statement. “Leading ‘pro-life’ organizations have repeated claimed that their efforts will not result in women going to jail, yet none opposed the arrest of Ms. McCormack.”

The federal court’s ruling states that women are exempt from being charged under “physician only” criminal statues when it comes to abortion, regardless of whether the law says so explicitly.

“[T]here is no Supreme Court precedent that recognizes or suggests that third party criminal liability may extend to pregnant women who obtain an abortion in a manner inconsistent with state abortion statutes,” according to the panel.

The question that remains is are anti-choice lawmakers and law enforcement looking for a way to set that precedent? If the surge in charging women for self-abortion continues, we will likely have our answer.

In terms of restricting access to abortion rights, the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey gave states a broad license to pass nearly any conceivable kind of restriction so long as that restriction did not pose an undue burden on a woman’s right to chose to terminate a pregnancy. When faced with the question of what constitutes an undue burden, the federal judiciary has overwhelmingly come down on the side of supporting restrictions at the expense of women’s access to abortion care.

We’ve seen this most recently when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that mandating invasive and medically-unnecessary ultrasounds prior to an abortion did not pose an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion. We saw it again when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that forcing women to listen to misleading and inaccurate medical disclosures designed to persuade them from having an abortion was also not an undue burden on that woman. But, according to the Ninth Circuit, there is a limit to how a state can restrict abortion access and that limit appears to be criminally prosecuting those women who seek and have abortions.

The specific issue before the Ninth Circuit was whether the state can impose criminal liability on pregnant women for failing to abide by the state’s abortion statutes, namely obtaining an “unlawful abortion” by buying medications online to terminate her pregnancy. Jennie Linn McCormack, a single mother of three, needed an abortion but, because there are no licensed abortion providers in Southeastern Idaho she couldn’t find one. McCormack also could not afford the trip to Salt Lake City and the cost of the procedure, which by now would be more expensive due to the delay to access a provider. In crisis and in need of an abortion McCormack went online and ordered the necessary drugs for a medication abortion in violation of a state law that requires all abortions to be performed at a hospital or medical clinic.

Prosecutors charged McCormack under the state’s unlawful abortion statute. An Idaho federal judge initially dismissed the charges against her without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could re-file charges later while the court heard challenges to the constitutionality of the law. After that initial dismissal McCormack also challenged the laws, including a more recent 20-week abortion ban herself, arguing they were unconstitutional restrictions on her right to chose an abortion. As it turns out, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed. Mostly.

In a strongly-worded opinion Judge Harry Pregerson plainly and unapologetically embraced the idea that prosecuting women for terminating pregnancies won’t end abortion, it will just create a whole new class of criminals. That burden is obvious and apparent to the court. The law “puts an undue burden on women seeking abortions by requiring them to police their provider’s compliance with Idaho’s regulations” the court said.

Furthermore, the “choice” women have in Idaho is no choice at all. “Under this Idaho statute, a pregnant woman in McCormack’s position has three options: (1) carefully read the Idaho abortion statutes to ensure that she and her provider are in compliance with the Idaho laws to avoid felony prosecution; (2) violate the law either knowingly or unknowingly in an attempt to obtain an abortion; or (3) refrain altogether from exercising her right to choose an abortion.”

For once it was the plight of the pregnant woman, and not the state’s interest in policing her pregnancy, that caught the court’s attention. The court took great pains to acknowledge the barriers that women–especially low-income women–face in obtaining abortion services, including lack of providers, financial obstacles, and harassment at clinics.

“This Idaho statute heaps yet another substantial obstacle in the already overburdened path that McCormack and pregnant women like her face when deciding whether to obtain an abortion” the court held, in barring McCormack’s prosecution.

“We are thrilled by the Ninth Circuit’s unequivocal statement that statutes that make it a crime for women to seek abortion care pose an undue burden on their ability to terminate their pregnancies,” said Janet Chung, attorney for Legal Voice, a women’s legal advocacy group that filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Ms. McCormack.

“This is an important decision that explicitly rejects Idaho’s claim that the state may use its criminal abortion laws to punish pregnant women who end their pregnancies,” said Lynn Paltrow, Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She added, “Leading ‘pro-life’ organizations have repeated claimed that their efforts will not result in women going to jail, yet none opposed the arrest of Ms. McCormack.”

The importance of the decision cannot be overstated, in part because so many other courts have willingly, and in the case of Judge Edith Jones in the Fifth Circuit, gleefuly disregarded the realities of life for women like McCormack when upholding laws that serve no purpose other than to erect barriers for those women to access they care they need and the care they have a constitutionally protected right to receive.

If there is a dark spot in the ruling it is that given the procedural posture of the case the court couldn’t strike the law in its entirety meaning that, for now, other pregnant women could still face prosecution in Idaho for doing what McCormack did, or something similar. And while McCormack had also tried to affirmatively challenge the state’s 20-week fetal pain ban, the court held she lacked the standing to do so meaning that law also stands. Most importantly though, the idea that there is even a dispute as to whether or not women should face criminal prosecutions for terminating pregnancies, and that the outcome of that dispute was even momentarily in doubt, is a stark reminder of just how restricted this constitutional right has become.

For anti-choice activists, Idaho’s Jennie Linn McCormack is the poster child for their “abortion as birth control” talking point. A single mother of three living on child support, McCormack accidentally got pregnant while her youngest was still a toddler. It wasn’t her first unintentional pregnancy, either. She had already had an abortion, and the man who impregnated her was currently in jail.

But for all of those reasons, McCormack is maybe the best example of why abortion should remain legal and even more accessible, and a civil suit scheduled to be heard in the 9th Circuit this week could turn that into a reality.

McCormack was charged with illegal abortion in 2011 after receiving pills to end her pregnancy from her sister, who procured them over the internet. It’s unclear if the medication actually caused the ending of the pregnancy — McCormack, who thought she was about 14 weeks pregnant was actually closer to 20 or more based on examination of the fetus — or if she would have miscarried regardless, since the medication isn’t recommended for termination after nine weeks gestation.

It was this uncertainty, a lack of medication found in the fetus, or any packaging materials, that resulted in a dismissal. However, the case was left open so charges could be reintroduced if any new evidence was discovered.

McCormack’s lawyer, Richard Hearn, has said it is that factor that has caused McCormack to sue to overturn the “unlawful abortion” statute, as well as the state’s so-called “fetal pain” law which makes it illegal to terminate a pregnancy past 20 weeks, to ensure she cannot be charged again. Her case against the 20-week abortion ban was dismissed for lack of standing because it was not in effect yet when she was arrested. But Hearn, who was also a licensed physician, then filed to intervene and be a second plaintiff, as well as turn the suit into a class action.

McCormack’s case may be filled with the type of gruesome details that make those who oppose abortion salivate. “Idaho woman placed aborted fetus on barbecue,” one headline screams, while the woman who tipped off the police about the alleged crime worried that “the baby had no voice.” Some claim that the case is too ugly, that McCormack is too unsympathetic for those who support a woman’s right to control her reproductive health to support.

The reality is that McCormack is the reason why Roe exists, and why the whittling away of abortion rights is so critical at this point. Regardless of how late it occurred, McCormack’s attempt to terminate was a combination of financial struggles, an inability to access an affordable procedure, and a lack of providers who could provide a termination. Restrictions since 1992’s Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision, such as waiting periods, which drive up expenses and the time needed to get an early abortion; TRAP laws; and attacks on providers, have created roadblocks to early safe abortion care. As a result, early, safe abortion care has become increasingly unattainable for women at the economic margins, leading them to take matters into their own hands to terminate an untenable pregnancy in any way possible.

As has been predicted, access to safe abortion care is increasingly dependent on a woman’s economic means. And now, those women who can’t afford safe abortion care and take matters into their own hand are increasingly being prosecuted for their actions by the same people who have cut off access to legal procedures in the first place.

McCormack wasn’t charged for ending the pregnancy illegally, but for getting pregnant in the first place. The prosecutor admitted as much when he searched for charges to bring up against her, deciding that he could make what she did fit the standards of the “unlawful abortion” law, which had been in existence since 1972 but never used on a woman in the state before.

“It just felt like it fit the statute,” Bannock County prosecuting attorney, Mark L. Hiedeman told the L.A. Times. “[And] this wasn’t the first time this has happened. She’s had abortions before, and miscarriages. I mean, she was obviously getting pregnant time and time again and not protecting the unborn fetus.”

When asked if he thought that other women in the state might also be using pills from the internet to end their pregnancies, Heideman said, “Probably that’s the case. We just don’t know about it.”

Just as being able to obtain an abortion shouldn’t be dependent on a woman’s economic status, being prosecuted for obtaining an “illegal” one shouldn’t be dependent on a woman’s personal history. If a woman cannot obtain an abortion legally, and has to fear ending up in jail simply because a prosecutor doesn’t agree with her decisions in life, there’s little choice but to sue to bring the entire law down.

That is Hearn’s position when it comes to challenging Idaho’s “unlawful abortion” statute. The intervenor complaint argues:

Idaho Code § 18-605(2) entitled “Unlawful abortions – Accomplice or accessory – Submitting to – Penalty” reads as follows: “Except as permitted by this Act . . . (2) Every woman who knowingly submits to an abortion or solicits of another, for herself, the production of an abortion, or who purposefully terminated her own pregnancy otherwise than by live birth, shall be deemed guilty of a felony and shall be fined not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000) and/or imprisoned in the state prison for not less than one (1) and not more than five (5) years; . . . “31. In criminalizing the conduct of women in Idaho for submitting to abortions provided by licensed health care providers practicing both in and outside of the State of Idaho, Idaho Code § 18-605(2) imposes an undue burden on those women’s right to obtain an abortion as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Should Hearn and McCormack be able to overturn the “unlawful abortion” law in the state, obtaining medication off the internet in order to terminate a pregnancy would be a viable option. Despite the fact that there are only two clinics in the state that provide abortions, women would no longer face large economic burdens in order to end unwanted pregnancies, nor worry that they could face jail time simply by enacting their constitutional right to choose.

Hearn has said he is willing to see the case all the way to the Supreme Court. What begins in the 9th Circuit this week could end all the way in D.C., and has the potential to expand abortion access for everyone along the way.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/07/08/idaho-trial-over-unlawful-abortion-could-have-national-repercussions/feed/4Now It’s Clear: “Pro-Life” Means “Pro-Imprisonment”http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/04/17/now-its-clear-%E2%80%9Cpro-life%E2%80%9D-equals-%E2%80%9Cpro-imprisonment%E2%80%9D/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=now-its-clear-%25E2%2580%259Cpro-life%25E2%2580%259D-equals-%25E2%2580%259Cpro-imprisonment%25E2%2580%259D
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/04/17/now-its-clear-%E2%80%9Cpro-life%E2%80%9D-equals-%E2%80%9Cpro-imprisonment%E2%80%9D/#commentsTue, 17 Apr 2012 07:46:09 +0000Must “restoring the historic right to life accorded to unborn children” require that women, including new mothers who have given birth, go to prison?

]]>Last week, the Alabama Supreme Court agreed to consider an amicus (friend of the court) brief filed by the Liberty Counsel in support of the prosecutions of Hope Ankrom and Amanda Kimbrough. The Liberty Counsel describes itself as an organization whose mission includes protecting “the inalienable right to life guaranteed to all, including unborn children.” While a number of “pro-life” leaders claim that recognizing the rights of the unborn and re-criminalizing abortion should not and will not lead to the arrest or punishment of women, the Liberty Counsel has clearly and unequivocally taken the position that “restoring the historic right to life accorded to unborn children” requires that women, including new mothers who have given birth, go to prison.

Ms. Ankrom and Ms. Kimbrough are two of approximately 60 women who have been arrested under Alabama’s 2006 Chemical Endangerment law. The overwhelming majority of these women have given birth to healthy babies.

The Chemical Endangerment law originally was passed to create special penalties for people who bring children into methamphetamine labs. Despite the law’s clear purpose, prosecutors have argued, and the Alabama’s mid-level Court of Criminal Appeals has agreed, that the law may also be used to arrest and jail women who become pregnant, eschew abortion, and go to term, despite having used a controlled substance. In other words, the Court of Appeals has ruled that under Alabama’s Chemical Endangerment law a pregnant woman who has never been to a meth lab and who has never brought a child into a meth lab, can be punished for bringing a child into the world if she tests positive for a controlled substance—even one prescribed to her by her doctor.

According to the Liberty Counsel, the “convictions of the Defendants under the chemical endangerment law properly protect unborn children as preborn human beings. . . .” Forty-seven medical, public health and legal advocacy groups and individuals, who filed their own amicus brief in these cases, disagree.

These organizations and experts, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Nurses Association, have concluded that using the criminal law to address issues of drug use during pregnancy undermines, rather than protects, “unborn children.” One reason is that threats of arrest have been shown to deter pregnant women from drug treatment and prenatal and other healthcare that can help ensure maternal, fetal, and child health. Furthermore, if these prosecutions continue, pregnant women who are addicted to drugs and who cannot overcome that addiction in the short term of pregnancy will be pressured into having unwanted abortions to avoid criminal penalties. That is what happened in the Greywind case, in which a pregnant woman had an abortion in order to get the state of North Dakota to drop “fetal endangerment” charges against her.

So why would a group that claims to value life urge Alabama’s highest court to uphold an interpretation of the chemical endangerment law that coerces women into having abortions and punish the ones who don’t?

The answer, perhaps, lies in the Liberty Counsel’s brief that purports to document the historic view that the “unborn child is fully human” and protected by law. This brief references 19th century anti-abortion activists who firmly believed that the only proper role for women (white ones at least) is as wives and mothers. The Liberty Counsel’s brief quotes with approval one such activist who asserted that a woman who even considers having an abortion “. . .demoralizes her whole moral being. It is a prostitution of all her higher nature.”

Whatever the Liberty Counsel’s reasons, this “pro-life” group argues that the Alabama Supreme Court “should uphold the convictions and thereby move toward restoration of the life-affirming worldview that predated Roe.” It is difficult, however, to see what is “life-affirming” about hauling off to jail new mothers who just gave birth and leaving their children motherless? Penalties under the Chemical Endangerment law range from not less than 1-year-and-1-day to up to 99 years (life) in prison.

Since 2005, National Advocates for Pregnant Women has documented hundreds of cases in Alabama and elsewhere in which women have been arrested for allegedly endangering their pregnancies including: Christine Taylor in Iowa who was charged with attempted fetal homicide after she fell down a flight of stairs while pregnant, Jennie McCormick in Idaho who was charged with having an illegal abortion, and Bei Bei Shuai in Indiana who has been charged with murder for suffering a pregnancy loss after a suicide attempt.

The Liberty Counsel has established that the “pro-life” position is “pro-punishment,” not just for doctors who perform abortions, and not just for women who intentionally end their pregnancies and have abortions, but also for pregnant women who have no intention of ending their pregnancies and go to term.

Feminists for Life has, apparently, distinguished itself from this point of view. But what about all of the other groups including Priests for Life, Generations for Life, and Americans United for Life that have assured the public that women will not go to jail if their point of view becomes law? If “pro-life” does not mean “pro-imprisonment,” now would be a good time to speak up and stop the growing assault on the dignity, sanctity, and liberty of the women who bring forth life.

This week, Newsweek revealed a riveting profile of Jennie McCormack, the Idaho woman charged with “self-abortion” who is now challenging the state’s abortion laws. Newsweek called her “the next Roe,” but anti-choice activists aren’t a big fan of that designation.

The strong implication is that the state is, if not eager to retry McCormick under the 1972 law, at least keeping its powder dry. In fact, the law has rarely been used and McCormack’s case may be the only instance. In any event pro-lifers never ask that women be prosecuted, seeing them as the second victim. [emphasis mine]

After her picture appeared in the paper, McCormack got a part-time job at a dry cleaner, using another name, but people figured out who she was and stopped letting her bag up their clothes, so she quit. On a recent trip to a local state office to apply for aid, she was ignored for hours. “They made it clear what was happening,” she says. “For a while I just sat there, sort of amazed that they were just letting me sit there.” Eventually, she picked up her son and went home.

Despite their claims to the contrary, many in the “pro-life” movement are just as happy to judge punish a woman who aborts as they are a doctor.